Hope
by Kay Taylor
Summary: Aragorn finds hope in the hearts of men.


_She still has hope,_ he thinks, and for a brief moment that's enough. There's nothing but the cool night air on his face, the quiet sound of the waterfall, the play of moonlight on the river. She is far, far older than him, and she still has hope.  
  
He takes her hands in his. So smooth. So cool, which was one of the first things he noticed about her. She dresses in pale blue and white, like a statue carved from the ice on the Ford in winter.  
  
Though when she leans close, he can feel the faint warmth of her skin, the pulse fluttering on her neck.  
  
She still has hope, but that's not enough, not nearly enough.  
  
Because what is hope, without fear?  
  
He doubts that Arwen Undomiel has ever known fear._  
  
She hopes because she does not know_, he tells himself angrily, and breaks away from her embrace. From the bridge, he can see the sleeping kingdom stretched out beneath them, and it looks like a toy, the white pillars of Rivendell. And it _is_ asleep, and it's always going to be asleep, because war has never come to Rivendell or Lorien. And so the elves pass on. And so the elves can hope.  
  
It's nothing to what Aragorn sees in the hills, in the mountains.  
When the wolves are at your back, and the rain is lashing down fit to drown a man, and there are Black Riders abroad, then. It's like tasting the snow on the air days before it comes. Like waking with sunrise and seeing the land caught half-way between light and dark.  
  
He remembers her, at the Ford. She has never known fear.  
  
What Aragorn sees in Boromir is change, and it startles him. He's been so long among the trees and hills and elves that he's almost forgotten that he's a _man_, and as quick to anger as the rest of them. As full of arrogance and contempt as the young lord of Gondor, no matter how well he hides it. And his hands shake when the old legends - his _birthright_ - are dismissed as mere fairytale, because what would this man know? But he recognises it as arrogance, and something else. A desire to prove himself, like against like. A desire to have Boromir claim him King, as no man ever has.  
  
Elessar' the elves call him, Elf-stone. He's been claimed as one of their own since he was old enough to remember; raised in Rivendell to speak Elven, and follow Elven custom, and to love Lord Elrond's daughter, as naturally as night follows day. But for all that, he isn't an elf. He lives for the things which matter most to men - the right to claim his lineage, the right to hear his people proclaim him King. The right to lead Middle Earth out of this present darkness and forward, into a new age of men.  
  
He knows that the Elves will take the ships to Valinor. And he fears that Arwen will go with them, bearing their love away into the West.  
  
When she kisses him, it's like being in a dream - as if the whole world stops around them, and for a moment the trooping of battle-hosts and wolf-cry stops in Aragorn's mind, long enough to feel soft lips pressed against his, full breasts cupped in his hands.  
  
Looking down, he can see the faint pink of her nipples through the gauze, pressing against the fabric. And his hands suddenly seem coarse and too-large, but she won't let him take them away. Her hands are sliding down his back, against the sweat and dirt of his jerkin; white against muddy brown, and he flushes, embarrassed. It is not given to men to love Elves, not like that, not like _this_.  
  
The harshness is almost a relief, after the courtly customs of the Elves, the soft beds of Rivendell. He almost laughs at the irony of it - that he'd wanted nothing more than to be away again, to lie on the lee-side of the wind and pull a cloak over himself, becoming nothing more than another part of the deep, silent rhythm of the earth. And the anger, the sheer _anger_ of Boromir - every time he looks at this man who has never claimed to be his King - is like a punch in the stomach, though the analogy makes Aragorn smile.  
  
Who but a man could find a punch in the stomach - a relief?  
  
Arwen hopes because she's never known fear. Because to her, life is unchanging. Whereas the hopes of men _lie_ in that fear, in something beautiful and terrible that goes beyond the flash of blades and into the clear, pale light at the heart of battle. Boromir has seen it. He knows the way to that sanctuary, and finds it every time he fights. It is stamped on his face - the mark of a man.  
He wants to use the ring to fight. Only the long, long years with the Elves have convinced Aragorn that this cannot be done. Across the fire, the last embers spluttering with the sap in the wood - too green - Aragorn watches Boromir watching Frodo, and knows that if he was a man of Gondor, he would try to take it by force.  
  
Boromir knows fear, and he knows sanctuary. He looks up, and for a moment his gaze meets Aragorn's. But a shadow passes over his face, and he looks away.  
  
And as it is not given to men to love Elves, Aragorn thinks that it cannot be given to a man to feel like this, in the face of his companion, his _brother_. And there are no gentle kisses. There is no waterfall, no soft breeze of Rivendell, no moonlight glinting off the waters. Just the coarse fabric of his cloak, and the terrible harsh warmth of Boromir's breath in the air, the heavy hardness of him, all chain mail and gauntlets.  
  
And hope, suddenly, in the most unexpected of places.


End file.
